


Descent From Light

by bittergrin



Series: Shadows in the Moonlight [4]
Category: High School Musical (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Cthulhu Mythos, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittergrin/pseuds/bittergrin
Summary: Gabriella is desperate to save her dying mother. How far is she willing to go?
Series: Shadows in the Moonlight [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1751512





	1. Chapter 1

My name is Gabriella Socorro Montez, and like everyone else Ryan has coerced into writing one of these, I have a secret too, and this is part of it.

* * *

I sat immersed in my studies, not for the first time, but never before had I been searching for something so important. The fluorescent lights from the hallway shown through the window illuminating the ancient book in my lap. The steady beeps of the heart monitor and a respirator pump my only companions in the dim room.

The book was old, seven centuries or so, unless I was mistaken it dated to the late fourteenth century. I was wearing some latex gloves I'd stolen from a nurse's cart as I turned the page, searching for what had to be there. The hints had been there in the _Pnakotica_ but always obscured by a bad scan or some vagary of ancient Greek that no living person could hope to decipher. But the hints had been there, and that had been enough. What I wanted, no needed, to do was possible if only I could find the right book.

My eyes sagged under the weight of lost sleep, but I couldn't give into it. Instead, I forced them to scan the handwritten Latin script. It was neither beautiful nor precise, no well-trained monk had spent time copying this, it was the scrawled translation of even older work, translated by someone who was already more than half-mad.

It had taken me over a month, and more letters of recommendation than I could remember, to get access to the Manuscripts Collection at The Huntington Library in California. Then there was the time it took me to get there. I drove all night, without stopping to sleep and barely stopping to eat. And how did I repay all those glowing letters of recommendation from professors? By stealing the book I went there for, I had to. I needed the book here, not there, and I couldn’t trust that a photocopy wouldn’t leave out critical details.

A sudden change in the otherwise steady rhythm of the heart monitor drew my eyes to the emaciated figure on the bed as it shifted below the sheets. The clicking of the breathing machine stayed steady, and the heart monitor returned to its normal beat. I stared longer than I should have; I berated myself and returned my eyes to the book. If I could find the right formula I’d have all the time for staring I wanted.

They didn’t even know the book was gone yet, and if I was lucky I’d be able to get it back before they did. In truth though, I wasn’t worried about what they would do, I was a first time offender, as far as human law was concerned, and wouldn’t get more than a slap on the wrist for my ‘borrowing’ of the manuscript, as long as no damage came to it, hence the gloves. What I was worried about is what the rest of the Pack would do. Mrs. Nielsen had made it clear that she didn’t condone my continued pursuit of “sorceries better forgotten”. She’d even gone so far as to imply a grim fate awaited those of our kind who overstepped certain bounds.

Johannes Pott, it was his trail I was following. By rumor, he’d written a book containing the precise formula I’d need. Unfortunately, the publishers he submitted it too didn’t agree with his brilliance and all copies of that manuscript had been lost. But he’d once held the very tome I now did, and my only hope was to unlock the same secrets as he.

If only she wasn’t so stubborn! I almost hurled the book away in disgust. One bite and it would all go away. One bite and she’d never have to leave me. I didn’t throw the book away, but I did slam it shut, harder than I intended. The figure in the bed shifted; I froze, praying that I hadn’t woken her up. She needed her rest. When she settled back into a deep sleep I set the book down on the chair next to me and stood to look at her for what felt like the millionth time.

My mom had always been so strong. But what I saw in the bed didn’t even look like her anymore. Her body ravaged by cancer, she looked so thin and weak. I took step towards her, and reached out, but stopped myself before I touched her. She had to weigh less than ninety pounds now, and her once beautiful hair had all fallen out due to chemotherapy.

I sighed, struggling to hold back the tears. I returned to the book.

It spoke at length, rambling and insane length, of some forgotten god named Iod. The tome was known as the _Book of Iod_ , so it was unsurprising that he or she, the writer seemed to confuse the gender of the god repeatedly, was the central point of the work. But my primary interest was another long lost god mentioned extensively in the manuscript, Zulchequon, an ancient death deity. It may seem strange that I looked to a god of death to save my mother’s life; but I knew that if I could just see through the madness of the book’s writer, I’d find the secret to killing cancer.

I’d looked for simpler solutions first, of course. But incantations that promised healing were few, far between, and all pre-dated the discovery of cancer as every one of them I’d attempted had failed. Well, they predated the discovery of cancer by humans at least. Whatever had written the _Pnakotica_ certainly knew about it. There were more… extreme rituals I could try, but the costs were too high without a guarantee of success. This was the only course left to me, and if the doctors were right, I didn’t have time to look for another way.

* * *

I lasted another twenty hours before I passed out into a nightmare filled sleep. Mom never woke up the entire time I sat there. The nurses seemed to spend more time checking on me than they did her, only checking her vitals and shaking their heads before seeing if I wanted food.

When I woke up one of the doctors was there. When I asked about Mom’s condition he responded with some medical jargon, that I think he assumed I wouldn’t understand. She didn’t have long left. After the doctor departed, I grabbed my notes and pulled the book from my bag; I’d marked over a dozen pages with sticky notes, and dog-eared two dozen more. Neither was good for the preservation of the book, and any serious historian would die at the sight; but amongst the many things I didn’t have time for, was proper care and handling. It also appeared that I no longer had time for proper research.

I flipped to one of the marked pages and read it for what may very well have been the hundredth time. It was at best a rough Latin transliteration of a ritual designed to attract the interest of Zulchequon, at worst an invitation for certain death. But what choice did I have? I couldn’t just watch her die, she was all I had.

I almost screamed in frustration. If only she wasn’t so stubborn. One bite and she’d recover. Fuck it, I’d just bite her now, she’d be furious, but she’d get over it. Even if she didn’t I’d rather have her mad at me than not have her at all. I didn’t even care about the difficulty explaining her sudden remission to the doctors would present, I just wanted her back.

I looked at her, really looked at her for the first time in weeks. The cancer had spread, metastasized was the word the doctor had used; it was ravaging most of her major organs now. Not only didn’t she look like my mother anymore, she didn’t even look like a person. She looked like a lumpy skeleton. I battled to hold back tears and failed. She was too far gone now, even a bite wouldn’t cure her, she’d die before it could save her.

I looked again at the now tear speckled page. I had no time and no choice.

* * *

The instructions were very clear about one thing. Zulchequon hated light. Not just sunlight or firelight, but all light. He’d kill, or worse, anyone foolish enough to summon him into its presence. Darkness would have been a rare enough commodity in the ancient world, but in the modern world, it was non-existent. The city lights illuminated the smog above the city, and in turn that would light up the desert for miles around. I couldn’t be sure any room would be dark enough either, even one crack, maybe even one stray photon and I’d beat Mom to the grave.

There was only one place I could think of that was dark enough, the first place where'd I'd ever experienced true darkness. It was dangerous to go alone, even years after our assault strange things still moved within the caverns below the city. Caverns that all my knowledge of geology told me shouldn't even exist. But there was no way I could tell my pack members what I planned, they wouldn't understand, they'd try to stop me. So alone I went.

I took everything I needed with me, a flashlight, a copper bladed knife, licorice root, the bottle of thyme from mom's herb rack, a thermos of marigold tea, and the stolen Book of Iod. Just in case I also carried a metal bowl and three units of blood I'd pilfered from the hospital.

I had to choose a chamber that no light reached. Had I more time I would've gone even further than I did, but time wasn't on my side, so I settled on an upper chamber, the first marked with wall paintings. I selected a large boulder, with a flattish area on top, as my working area. It looked as though the former inhabitants, whose stench even now lingered, had used it as a primitive table. I held the flashlight in my mouth so I could keep the book in one hand while I worked. I carved the name of Zulchequon into the root, using the characters of a strange and ancient language contained only within the book, and then rubbed the thyme into the cuts. I set the root on the altar, the god's name down, and then poured the marigold concoction over it, letting it soak into the altar.

It smelled like a mixture of candy and embalming fluid.

I set the metal salad bowl to my side and emptied the three units of blood into it. If things went bad, it seemed that the light-hating death god could be banished by a fire god, and I knew of only one way to the attention of one of those.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pack and pulled the battery from it before putting it back, I couldn't be too careful. I reviewed the summoning chant again and then turned off my flashlight. In the perfect darkness marred only by the bright spots left on my eyes by the flashlight's beam, I opened the flashlight and removed its batteries, placing first those, then the flashlight, and finally the book into my pack.

I stood and turned, feeling for the impromptu altar, I found it more by scent than anything else. I fumbled about until I found the carved root and knife, I patted the root, rubbing it like some talisman, and then took the knife to my hand, I sliced deep into the palm, letting my blood fall on the altar. I held the blade in the wound to keep it from closing up and began chanting. I say chanting, but in truth, it was a part chant, part hum, and part deep-throated howl. It was a-rhythmic and primal; more scream of mourning than a prayer of supplication. Somehow the translator of the book had managed to represent it, but I wouldn't do that here even if I could.


	2. Chapter 2

My half-howled ululations echoed back to me seemingly at random, some sounded like they came from right next to me, others sounded like they'd echoed from miles away. All stealth on my part was gone now; I could only hope that the other creatures lurking down here would leave me to my ritual in peace, afraid of what I called if not of me.

When the last of the echoes had died away I repeated my call, just as the ritual instructed, waking a sleeping god took patience.

It was all preposterous of course. A few herbs and a screamed invocation were hardly going to wake up some sleeping death god. He was just a mythological figure. Nothing was going to come. None of this was possible. Every hard-trained scientific impulse in my mind screamed against the insanity of what I was doing, told me it was impossible and that I was just wasting my time, time I could be spending with my mother. But those same impulses said that turning blood to fire was impossible.

This time as the echoes returned to me, other sounds were interspersed with them. The flapping of bat wings, muffled footfalls, and a distant splash that could have had no source in the dry caverns. I repeated the call for the third time, and then the fourth.

I had to stifle a laugh as the utter ridiculousness of the situation. If my high school self could only see me now.

Back then I'd always been more interested in the physical sciences, and I still tried to keep up with the latest breakthroughs in chemistry and physics, but now biology was suddenly much more important to me personally. I know that we various types of shapeshifters make up a relatively small chunk of the population, only about one of us for every one-hundred thousand or so pure humans, but that leaves a worldwide population of sixty to seventy thousand of us; and not one of them has ever felt compelled to conduct a proper scientific study of what we are. I think most of them still label it a curse and forget about it. I won't pretend that since I became what I am today, I haven't seen more than a few things that appear to defy scientific explanation, but there's the keyword, "appear". Just because I don't understand it, doesn't mean it can't be explained.

I'm still alone in my pursuit though. Jesse and Ryan are the only other ones who show even a passing academic interest; but Jesse spends most of his time working on computers, and Ryan is only interested in the mythic aspects of our history, he even majored in Russian so he could learn to read some of the older texts in Mrs. Nielsen’s library. Which has a certain merit, but you can only learn so much just reading musty old books, experimentation is the best way to understand something, which means sometimes you have to actually do what the books say.

My eyes were starting to itch as I repeated the call for the fifth and final time. This time there were no echoes, at least not of my voice. The sound of groaning stone came from the distance, as though the earth itself was screaming. The itching in my eyes got worse; I wanted to rub them but kept my hands on the stone slab that served as my altar. The itching turned to burning, it was almost unbearable. And to think, I thought the book had exaggerated when it said that those who summoned Zulchequon often ripped out their own eyes. I even considered it, they weren’t doing me any good in the darkness, and they’d grow back soon enough. I wouldn’t show weakness though, not now, not when I was so close.

The groaning and shifting of rocks grew closer and louder. The earth began to shake and dust rained on me from the unseen vaults of the ceiling. It’s impossible for perfect darkness to get darker, it’s already the absence of all photons, and there can’t be less than zero photons; yet, that’s exactly what seemed to happen as the tremors finally subsided.

No sound came from the darkness that now surrounded me. Instead, all I found in the presence of Zulchequon was an expectant silence. The book never mentioned how to strike a deal with it, only that it was possible. I didn’t even know if it would understand English, or any other language I could speak. I wished that I’d had longer to research, knowing what type of offering the death god was likely to want would have been useful, but time was running out, even at that moment my mom could be taking her last breath. No matter the risk, it was worth it to try.

“My mother, she’s dying,” I said.

Voices answered from all around me, speaking from a thousand invisible mouths in a thousand different languages. Yet somehow its meaning was clear to me. _We come for all._

“But, she’s too young. It’s not her time.”

The voices laughed. _Time is irrelevant._

“Then it shouldn’t matter if she dies now or in 50 years.”

_Who will you give in her place?_

“Myself.”

_That is not an equal trade._

“Anyone then,” I was desperate and not considering my words.

_Nature, red in tooth and claw; your pain for another’s._

The darkness awaited my response. Time was irrelevant to it; it would wait for my answer until doomsday. Time was not irrelevant to me, with each beat of my heart the chances of ever seeing my mother alive again faded. It didn’t sound like the type of offer that could be negotiated.

She would never forgive me. She would never want to live at the cost of someone else’s life. Even if she did live another fifty years, which would’ve been a long shot no matter what, I’d still have to face this; I was still going to lose her. Better that I lose her as the daughter she loved than as a monster she hated.

“No.”

The rock screamed. The darkness around me lost its impossible depth. Zulchequon was gone.

* * *

By the time I got back to the hospital, it was too late. Mom never woke up.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written around 2009, it was one of several attempts I made to continue the series that didn't end up going anywhere. But unlike the other ones this at least works as short, sad story.


End file.
